Robert Swanson
| birth_place = | death_date = October | death_place = | nationality = Canadian | other_names = | occupation = engineer, railway inspector, business owner, poet | known_for = whistles, horns, poetry }} Robert Eugene '"'Bob"' Swanson' (October 26, 1905 - October 4, 1994) was a prolific Canadian poet, known to his admirers as the "Bard of the Woods". He worked as a logger, safety inspector, and inventor. He is credited with the invention of the first 5- and 6-chime air horns for use on locomotives.Robert Swanson, Harbour Publishing. Web, June 11, 2013. Life Swanson, the son of Alfred Swanson, was born in Reading, England, and emigrated to Canada, settling in British Columbia He worked as a logger until gaining his degree as a professional engineer. He helped pay for his university education by selling his first book, Rhymes of Western Logger, from a wheelbarrow that he pushed down Vancouver's Granville Street. He became a qualified locomotive engineer, stationary engineer, and professional mechanical engineer, as well as chief inspector for the BC provincial department of railways. Swanson worked as the chief engineer of a company called Victoria Lumber Manufacturing in the 1920s, when he developed a hobby for making steam whistles for locomotives. Eventually, Swanson designed and built a large steam whistle for the mill where he worked. Vancouver Island, and in particular Nanaimo and Ladysmith, were his particular areas of activity. He built a whistle test station, which he called his "whistle farm", on Nanaimo Lakes Road on the island, from which he serenaded neighbours for miles around. Asked by officials at Canada's Federal Board of Transport to build an airhorn for diesel locomotives that would simulate the sound of a steam whistle, Swanson designed the Airchime, a 5-note horn.Ralph Daily, "Teaches Diesels to Whistle 'Song of Safety'," Vancouver Sun, January 21, 1949. Canadian Railway Hall of Fame. Web, Mar. 15, 2015. He also built the 4-note Heritage Horns on the BC Hydro building on Vancouver that played the first 4 notes of "O Canada" at noon every day. The horns are now on the roof of the Pan Pacific hotel at Canada Place in Vancouver. Later, Swanson worked as the chief inspector of railroads for the Province of British Columbia. It was here he met his future partner, Don Challenger, who operated a logging company. The 2 knew each other through the logging industry, which relied heavily on rail transportation at the time. They founded a company, Airchime Ltd., to promote Swanson's 5-chime air horn, the Airchime. As chief inspector, he wrote the provincial "Boiler Code" in 1948, and he required that all locomotives running on British Columbia provincially-regulated railways be equipped with a 5-note whistle (on which his company held the patent), rather than the 3-note whistle requirement for federally regulated railway locomotives. Swanson was the driving force behind the restoration of the Royal Hudson. Before his death he was an active member of the Ladysmith Railway Society. Many artifacts this society acquired were the direct result of his enthusiasm. Writing Swanson's poetry has often been compared to that of Robert W. Service. Indeed, it was reportedly Service himself who advised Swanson to duplicate his style to write verse about the B.C. logging industry. During his forestry career, Swanson visited every logging camp and mill operation on the coast, "and spent long evenings bull slinging with the legends of logging". He began writing down their stories and ballads in the 1930s, and by publishing them became one of British Columbia's bestselling poets. He also broadcast his poems via his weekly talk show on CJOR. His chapbooks were never accepted by the literary establishment, but his books easily outsold those of the better-known poets of the 1940s. Even in the 1980's, touring with him on a reading tour was being compared to "travelling with an octogenarian rock star." Quotations *"Without Homer, the Greeks would amount to bugger all." Recognition A book of his collected bunkhouse ballads, also titled Rhymes of a Western Logger, was published in 1992. After Swanson's death in 1994, his Nanaimo "whistle farm" was taken apart, moved, and reconstructed at the B.C. Forest Museum in Duncan, British Columbia.Whistle farm gets new home, Timber Lakes, 2004. Canadian Railway Hall of Fame. Web, Mar. 15, 2015. The company he founded to market his train whistles, Airchime, was inducted into the Canadian Railway Hall of Fame in 2004.Airchime (2004), Canadian Railway Hall of Fame. Web, June 12, 2013. Publications Poetry *''Rhymes of a Western Logger: A book of verse''. Vancouver, BC: The Lumberman Printing Company, 1942. *''Rhymes of a Lumberjack''. 1943. *''Bunkhouse Ballads: A third book of verse concerning the trials and tribulations, lives and ways of that red-blooded, outdoor breed of men who have built the Great Northwest of America''. Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1945. *''Rhymes of a Haywire Hooker: A book of verse concerning the lives and ways of the old-time loggers, railroadmen and frontiersmen who founded civilization in the Great Northwest'' (with "Seattle Red" Dan Swanson). Vancouver, BC: The Lumberman Printing Co., 1953. *''Rhymes of a Western Logger: The collected poems of Robert Swanson''. Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 1992. Fiction *''Whistle Punks and Widow-Makers: Logging stories'' (with Ken Drushka). Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 1997, 2000) Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy ABC Bookworld.Swanson, Robert E., ABC Bookworld, B.C. Bookworld. Web, June 11, 2013. See also * Ladysmith railway station *List of Canadian poets References External links ;About *Robert Swanson at Harbour Publishing *Swanson, Robert E. at ABC Bookworld *"Bob Swanson, logger poet and engineer" at Know B.C. *"Whistling around the world: Robert Swanson's AirChime beginnings in Nanaimo, BC by Darrell Ohs *[http://www.railfame.ca/images/inductee/technology/2004_Airchime_SunArticle.jpg Vancouver Sun article] January 21, 1949 *Timber News article *Alcan article *Robert Swanson's O Canada Heritage Horns Trumpet Canadian Medalists *Canadian Railway Hall of Fame Category:1905 births Category:1994 deaths Category:Canadian poets Category:Canadian engineers Category:Canadian inventors Category:Canadian people in rail transport Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:People from Reading, England Category:Writers from British Columbia